Hi

I have spent the last 2 days trying to get my head round the whole EAC / LAME / Alt Preset blah blah / Which compile? / Which version? stuff.

It's a lot to take in.

I am used to the incredibly straightforward and simple world of AudioGrabber + Lame.dll.

To make an MP3 I would simply find the wav file(s) choose VBR and Joint Stereo and then select a VBR level (usually from 1 to about 4 depending on the file size / quality I wanted).

That's all there was to it! The file would be created without any problems.

However, I have recently decided to attempt to climb the quality ladder a bit, and so I have started trying out EAC. There is no disputing EAC's quality, but its interface leaves a lot to be desired (it is very poor) and this makes it very difficult for noobs like me to get to grips with it.

I have read the Coaster Factory tutorial and have set all my options the way that they said they should be (including specifying where lame.exe is) but everytime I try to actually compress a file I just keep getting the following error

The external compressor returned an error!

Options : %l--alt-preset 128%l%h--alt-preset standard%h %s %d
"<D:\Path\Foobar. wav" "D:\Path\foobar.mp3"

I have spent hours trying to figure out what's wrong, but I just can't get it to work. 2 days later and i have still not made a single MP3.

Does anyone have any ideas where I am going wrong?

Thanks

Oomingmak

Have to disagree with your comment about EAC's interface... Anyway...

In compression options, use this:

* Paramater passing scheme: LAME
* Browse to the correct lame.exe file (wherever you put it -- it's quite handy to put all your encoders in one folder though)
* Command line options: forget about all the %-thingies, EAC will do that... Just use your preferred preset (in my case --> --preset extreme)
* Don't bother about that bitrate setting, but to ease your conscience, just select the highest option...
* Delete WAV, add ID3, high quality

This should do the job (does it for me)...

Jurgen

EAC isn't hard to use, yeah it has a tidbit different type of configuration you may be use to compared to other grabbing programs, however once you set it up correctly you won't have to worry about re-configuring it. Just make sure you save your config to an EAC Profile that will allow you to instantly restore your settings, and then backup that profile into a zip archive for instance.

Around here 3.90.3 is recommended due to it being tested so much. If you want to use 3.92 or above it's your choice. You don't have to use Lame.exe, you can use Lame_enc.dll if you wish. The DLL can use "--alt-preset standard".

This may be a little easier to read with the configuration separated:

If you would like to use lame's tagging routines instead of EAC's use the following:



And disable "Add ID3 tags"!

I would generally recommend these commandlines over EAC's tagging.

If you want to use ID3v1 tags in addition to the APEv2 tags load the files in foobar2000, select them and use Database -> Rewrite file tags from database.
Replaygaining, adding custom fields or any other tagging operations work too.
Check your standard input settings beforehand.

Thanks very much for your replies guys.

Jurg98 and Apesbrain (via PM) hit the nail on the head.

Basically I just needed to stop messing with all this % thingy stuff (as there were conflicts with source and destination paths).

I was exactly following instructions that I had read on various sites (including this one) and that's what caused the problem. Command line switches are nothing but gibberish to me, so even though it's easy enough to see what the individual switches like %s etc. relate to, it's more difficult to be aware of the interaction of the command line (as a whole) with other options that have been set within EAC. EAC gives you no warning of potential clashes or settings duplication (hence my comments about its poor interface).

One example is; using command line options makes the drop down list for bit rate redundant, but yet this drop list is not 'greyed out' when you enter text into command line box. So, you don't know if the bit rate value is having an effect or not (as the UI does not give you any visual cue). It's one of those things that you end up "just knowing" because you read somewhere that this is just how it works. This issue could be easily solved with just a couple of radio buttons.

I know loads of people will probably love the interface in EAC, but to me that kind of thing is just bad UI design. Obviously that's just my own opinion. There is, however, absolutely no denying that the underlying architecture of EAC is exemplary and delivers excellent results (but that don't necessarily mean that its interface is a triumph of usability and aesthetics).

I am still not exactly sure what the problem is in my configuration, but thanks to you guys I now know that it's something to do with defining source and destination files in 2 places at once (which either EAC or LAME does not like).

I simply removed the %s %d from my command line (which I had read in several different documents were essential switches) and it now works!

So thank you all very much.

This at least allows me to start making files and will give me more time to familarise myself with EAC's way of working (so that I can properly track down and understand where the problem lies in my current config).


The reason I was persevering with using lame.exe rather than lame.dll, is that I read in the Coaster Factory tutorial that lame.dll should be avoided.

The article said:




Finally, one more questions if I may:

How can I make EAC write ID tag information into wav files when extracting from CD to wav? I would prefer to extract several CD's to wav first and then set the whole lot compressing over night (as my PC is not very fast). However, if I do not make the MP3 file immediately in EAC, then it does not use any of the ID tag info that it has looked up in FreeDB and all the resulting MP3s have no tags at all.

In AudioGrabber this is done with just one checkbox "Append ID3 info to wav file for future use". You can then come back to the wav files at a later date and make MP3s with the full ID3 info.

I'm looking for the equivalent feature in EAC.


Thanks again


Oomingmak

Not true. I suggest reading this section from the EAC FAQ. It also serves cosmetical purposes when %r is not used (file size display).
EAC's usability is not bad, if you either use the defaults or are willing to read and learn about the advanced options. Blindly following various guides is not going to help.


Adding ID3 tags to a WAV container is not standards compliant and strongly discouraged. I'd suggest using either unmodified WAV files with an easy to parse filename or a lossless format like FLAC or APE with proper tagging support.

See this thread.